Trucking through the Niger.

by Claude Barutel

Hanging on trucks that seem coming straight out of hell, exhausted immigrants cross the Sahara, trying to reach the European Eldorado. But for most of them, the dream will turn into a nightmare. Victims of unscrupulous traffickers, racketed by the police of each country traversed, they pile up on old Mercedes', shivering at night and burnt by the sun during endless travelling days.

Crossing the largest desert in the world with such wrecks is not given to everyone and the drivers who are behind the wheels are highly respected by a whole population that worship the "desert of deserts".

The majority of these poor people will have to redo the same way back after spending many years in Algeria and Libya working in conditions worthy of a modern slavery.